70 pages 2 hours read

Morris Gleitzman

Once

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005

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Chapters 15-17

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 15 Summary

The Nazis drag Felix, Barney, and the children from the cellar and march them through the ghetto. Barney says they are being taken to the railway station. Felix figures the soldiers did not shoot them in the cellar because they want to make an example of them, parading them for other hiding Jewish people to see.

Felix thinks of a way to save Zelda’s life: He tells her to put the locket back on. At the train station, Barney tries to keep the children’s’ spirits up. The train is not a passenger train. Down the line, Nazis brutally force people on to it. One woman is shot. Barney tells the children to make a tent with their coats and distributes a little water. He gives Zelda crushed aspirin mixed in the last of it. Felix quietly shows Barney Zelda’s locket. Barney sighs and tells him that Zelda’s parents must have been killed by the Polish resistance. He agrees that they should tell someone. On the platform, Felix sees the officer who was Barney’s dental patient.

With some difficulty, Felix attracts his attention. He gives the officer the story he wrote for him and shows him Zelda and the locket.

Related Titles

By Morris Gleitzman